Gandhi for sale. This seems a bit sad.

They were as instantly recognisable as Churchill's cigar or Stalin's moustache. But unlike his political contemporaries, who enjoyed all the trappings of power and privilege, Mahatma Gandhi had few personal possessions apart from his wire-rimmed spectacles, leather sandals and a treasured Zenith pocket watch.

Gandhi wore them along with his simple white dhoti as he led millions of Indians in non-violent protest against British colonial rule.

The modest mementoes are now to be sold in New York and are likely to fetch a price that would have astonished and possibly appalled the spiritual Father of the Nation, who made a virtue of poverty and the renunciation of Western affluence.

Gandhi gave the spectacles to a colonel in the Indian Army who asked him for inspiration, telling the man: “These gave me the vision to free India.”